“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.” Edward R. Murrow
Isn’t it amazing how during an election year politicians can initiate more legislation and propose more spending schemes than at any other time during their terms?
Our governor has proclaimed a surplus of something like $168 million (although many others in government have doubted that figure) and when one looks in the door of the state treasury you will hear those famous words, “Here’s Johnny.” You can bet he’s going to try and spend it all, even though it might not be there.
Being an election year, our governor is already courting the votes of school teachers by calling for an increase in their salaries. Remember that if the starting salaries of teachers increase, then so would all other teacher salaries. There’s a problem here that has not been fully made public and that is who is going to pay for this increase? The last proposal I read was that the governor called for the state to pay for the first two years. Johnny must have forgotten that Maine owes something like $4 billion.
Which leads me to ask, why has our governor not cleaned house in the Department of Health and Human Services? Is he so politically connected that he does not have the intestinal fortitude to fire people in his administration? How can hundreds of millions of dollars be so misspent and no action taken?
Senate President Senator Beth Edmonds introduced LD 1924 supposedly for the betterment of the downtrodden workers in this state. Her initiative would prohibit employers from discussing politics in favor of one candidate with employees. I have to wonder how many cases of harassment of this type has gone to the Maine judicial system. I also wonder how many lawsuits this will generate when a disgruntled employee sues a boss even though the reason for the firing was because of poor performance at work. It’s no wonder that Maine has the 49th ranking as far as being business friendly. Whether you call them socialists, democrats or progressives, when your job disappears I hope you know who to call when your job is gone. LD 1924 is definitely a blatant attack on free speech. The Labor Committee has voted 8 to 5 that this crappy piece of legislation ought not to pass.
Then there’s the photo opportunity pieces of legislation like Tina’s Law or Jessica’s Law. I will be right up front here and state this for the record. I believe in the death penalty for heinous crimes against children and severe penalties for repeat offenders of severe traffic violations. Let’s take the politics out of the present day political rhetoric and set the record straight. I feel that the present laws are fine for dealing with the aforementioned criminals. We need to correct the judicial system and the people in it if our laws are not enforced properly. Please remember that both pieces of legislation will have a high cost.
Unrelated to the rest of this column, as a supporter of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights I was, of course dismayed about the ruling in Superior Court that the Secretary of State was wrong in approving the signatures being turned in late for that petition drive last fall. More on TABOR next week.
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